Only a Dream
by Kissa-chan
Summary: After the game, Tidus must come to terms with his fading reality. Please read and review. ONE SHOT!


Standard Disclaimers apply."ONLY A DREAM"  
  
Summary; After the game, Tidus wakes up in Zanarkand with everything seeming like a distant dream. And he keeps dreaming about drowning. How can he find who he is, and when he realizes he's only a dream, how will he cope?  
  
Game;FFX  
  
Rating; I should be okay with PG-13.  
  
************************  
  
His lungs burned with the need for air. Sure, he could practically sleep underwater, but this was different. He was trapped - couldn't get out. All around him stretched a darkening blue haze of liquid. It pressed into his skin, saturating every space. It soaked through his supposedly water resistant clothes, making them cling to his wet skin - it weighed him down. Everywhere, anywhere . . . inside of him, forcing out the precious oxygen that he desperately needed to survive was the watery depths.  
  
He struggled to move his arms - to swim. It was one of the basic points in his life. He couldn't remember a time when he couldn't swim. "A genuine fish, that one is," he dimly recalled his father saying about him. So why couldn't he swim? Certainly fish didn't ever feel this desperate burning for air, it went against all reason.   
  
He tried to kick his legs - not much, just a little. They felt heavy . . weighted . . . useless. He looked down, straining his pure blue eyes against the dim lights, hoping that his legs were merely trapped. Hoping that they weren't moving because they couldn't be moving. But there they were, feebly attempting to surface. Meekly trying to propel his head to the surface . . . if there even was a surface.  
  
A bubble escaped from his lips, floating past his eyes and rapidly vanishing above his head. He tried to follow it but it was hard. Harder than anything else he had ever done. Impossible to accomplish.  
  
Blood, crimson and thick, began to flow from his nose. It trailed away from him in a diluted stream. He tried not to watch it. He tried not to think about what it indicated. He tried so hard to move. Just a little. Enough to restore hope of survival.   
  
Trapped. Motionless. Endlessly watching his life trickle away as his vision became crimson tinged as the blood vessels in his eyes burst. Endlessly trying to breath where there was no air . . . .   
  
And somewhere in the middle of his chest a pain of longing throbbed, and he knew that he had lost everything.  
  
************************  
  
Tidus woke in a cold sweat. His entire body was drenched in water and for one fearful moment he thought he was under some strange ocean, unable to prevent his life from fading away. He raised his hand quickly, checking his nose for heated blood. He drew a shaky breath, realizing that he had been holding his it.  
  
In and out. One of the basics of life, but at the moment it seemed strange and foreign. He kept forgetting to draw new air in. He kept thinking that he was still underwater unable to let go of what little air he had. So he focused simply on breathing, letting all thoughts take flight from his dream stressed mind.  
  
When he felt relatively confident in his body's ability to automatically breath for him, he swung his feet out of the bed.  
  
He was a good looking man. Tall with brilliant blue eyes and spiky blond hair. A deep tan graced his well toned muscles, clearly labeling him as an adventurous type of person. A Blitzer on his way to being the very best, that's who he was. So why did he feel like he a stranger in his own home and bed? Why did he feel like there was nothing left in life for him to do? As if reality were only a dream and his existence was meaningless...  
  
He rubbed his hand across his face, trying to dredge up the memory of the nightmare that had woken him so rudely. Then he froze. Something wasn't right. It was off slightly, only enough to shake him and give him a nervous feeling.  
  
Tidus scanned the room, searching for whatever was out of place. His pure blue eyes moved mechanically across everything. His bed, tousled with signs of his late night unrest, was nestled inside his small bedroom. Beside it a small table held a brass lamp with a tattered shade. A single lightbulb dangled from the ceiling. It was just like he remembered it - in desperate need of a feminine touch.  
  
Every since his mother had let herself die, he hadn't changed anything in the ocean-side house. He had left it all the same. He didn't know how to redecorate and certainly didn't want to spend any more time then necessary on keeping it clean.  
  
He shrugged and started into the bathroom, grabbing a towel off of a brass rack. He paused in front of the mirror, briefly checking to see if his eyes were still blue, or if they were covered by a crimson cloud of his own blood.   
  
They were blue.  
  
He let out a deep breath that he hadn't meant to be holding and forcefully exterminated the dream from his thoughts. He tried to eradicate the dream-like feel to his world, but it wasn't working.  
  
He slunk down a hall, moving like a phantom. He felt restless, as if he shouldn't be alive right now. As if he didn't belong in Zanarkand. And of course, that was impossible. "Snap out of it," he ordered himself sharply. His voice came off muted and toneless.   
  
Everything felt muted. Like hearing with your ears full of water. It was the surreal silence that he usually felt during blitz practice if he didn't keep moving. If he just held still and let the water press around him.  
  
He turned on the TV and flipped through the channels rapidly. Settling on an old blitz movie, the transmission was abruptly cut off by a news bulletin. He watched in confusion as the announcer spoke slowly and the words flashed across the screen.  
  
Missing and presumed dead....... Tidus ........ may his soul rest in peace ..... the key words flashed across his brain with lightning speed. He had just played last night, hadn't he? Hadn't he been playing his arch enemy team? Hadn't he won?   
  
He strained his memory, searching for the answer to his own question. He remembered going to the game. Hearing the announcers talk about his old man. Signing a couple of blitz balls for some kids. Flirting with the girls. Sitting in the waiting room while waiting for the buzzer to sound.  
  
And then the roar that went through the crowd as the sphere pool filled with water. The first blast of cool water against his skin and then the game itself. Intense and action filled. He had went to take a shot and then, overturned in the air he had seen -  
  
He shook his head. What had he seen? He couldn't remember. Presumed dead, the newscaster had said. Gone for eight months - he had only been sleeping for an hour, hadn't he?  
  
He slumped back on the couch, covering his eyes with his hand. "What's going on?" he murmured.   
  
"You don't belong here -"  
  
"Wha?" he began, sitting up and looking around.   
  
"You're not like this anymore. You can't return here. Go away."  
  
Tidus stood up, looking around slowly. "Who are you?" he asked.   
  
"You know that you don't belong. You can feel it."  
  
He shook his head and headed towards the door. He didn't have time for mysterious voices in the dark. He needed to get out of the house.   
  
For hours, he wandered aimlessly around Zanarkand. The restless feeling was getting stronger by the second and everything had a surreal feel to it. Nothing felt right anymore. He felt out of place and lost.  
  
"Wanna scream?" a playful woman's voice rang through his head. He started as if he had been slapped.   
  
"Where are you?" he asked. In response, fake laughter spilled through his mind. "Okay, I'm going crazy," he whispered. He went to the seashore, willing the waves to still his turmoil.  
  
"Zanarkand? It was destroyed 1,000 years ago." This time it was a man's voice. But it was wrong. He was in Zanarkand and it wasn't destroyed.  
  
But everything seemed to be overlaid with images of destruction. He kept seeing the buildings in shambles and could have sworn that people were faded in and out of reality.  
  
"Sin swam close to waking dream. Your father touched Sin that day and became real, floundering in the oceans of Spira."  
  
Tidus shook his head again. It felt thick and stupid. He couldn't think straight. He felt heavy and stupid all over. He didn't feel like the energetic blitz player he was supposed to be.  
  
Looking over the waves, he thought he saw a girl. A swell of white water swirling around her feet and a blue staff held in one hand. She was dancing, warm brown hair spilling around her angelic face. Her sleeves twirled out to the side and her long blue skirt seemed to flow like water around her. Her eyes were brimming with tears and a look of sorrow seemed to be permanently etched onto her features.   
  
He blinked and she was gone. His breath came in a short gasp, cutting through him like a knife. "Yuna......" he whispered the name with deep feeling. That was who she was. But she was real. He wasn't.  
  
He started walking towards the spot where he had seen her image. In a haze, he entered the water, reaching his hand towards her. "Yuna...." he breathed her name softly.  
  
"I love you."  
  
It had hurt to hear her say that. It twisted through his soul like a knife. Because he knew that he was leaving her forever. That he wasn't going to stay any longer. Because he was a dream and all dreams had to eventually fade. It had been happening already.  
  
He had wrapped his arms around her, painfully aware that his body no longer had any substance. A final embrace devoid of warmth, but full of emotion. A final embrace to say good bye to the one that he loved.   
  
He stepped foreword and passed through her. It was his time to go. He couldn't stay in Spira any longer. Everything and everyone he knew and had grown to care about. He had to say good-bye to them. He had to leave it all. But at least they would be free. The chains of sorrow that Sin wrapped around them - he'd helped break those chains. And Yuna hadn't died, she had lived.  
  
So why was he still here? Why was he in the Zanarkand of the past? Sitting on a desolate beach and remembering the only part of his life that felt real. The only part of his life that felt like reality.  
  
"I don't belong," he whispered softly.  
  
"You don't belong......."  
  
"Then why am I here?"  
  
"You have to let go. Don't cling to reality. Let yourself fade. Your will is strong, but we need to rest. Stop thinking. Stop being and let yourself fade. It'll be okay, you'll see."  
  
And strangely the thought of fading scared him now. While he was in Spira, leaving all his friends behind, he hadn't felt anything. But now..... He wanted to go back. He wanted to play blitzball with Wakka.  
  
"Just fade away."  
  
He didn't want to. He still had so much to do. He wanted to learn new things from Lulu. He wanted to joke around with Rikku and stop by the Farplane to see Auron.  
  
"Just fade."  
  
But more then anything, he wanted Yuna. It was a burning need. He felt a spot missing in him where she was supposed to be. He wanted to talk, laugh, cry - anything with her. He wanted to give her a real hug and then kiss her. Tell her that he loved her. Show her how much he cared about her.......  
  
"Fade."  
  
And he knew that he had to. He was already doing it. His body was fading, disappearing under the constant whispers of the Fayth.   
  
He dove into the water, swimming under with powerful strokes. It felt oddly reminiscent of the dream that had woken him that morning. And that was the key. He had been drowning - dying or fading. ceasing to exist. Changing from a dream to a memory.  
  
But he hadn't wanted to. He wanted to keep going. And somehow he had. The dream reality of Zanarkand had welcomed him back. But he didn't want the life presented to him anymore. He wanted so much more. But it was impossible to attain and he crumbled to the desires of the Fayth.  
  
And nothingness seemed to soothe his soul.  
  
Thanks for reading,  
  
Kissa-chan 


End file.
